Valentine's Day Plans
by Disco Shop Girl
Summary: Chuck's Valentine's Day Plans for Raina may have been ruined but they're inconsequential to the firestorm raging inside him. As Nate is about to find out, it's Blair's "waiting" that is tearing his friend apart. An alternative ending to 4x15.
1. Chapter 1

A fleeing Raina bolted out the bedroom door, down the stairs like a horse from a firestorm and almost bowled Nate over in the process.

"Dude, that was harsh," the blonde peered in at his volatile best friend, wincing at how taut his dark features were. Chuck didn't get this upset when any old girl dismissed him. Usually he didn't stick around long enough to care if they left him. That was how Nate Archibald knew with absolutely certainty he was about to witness a Chuck Bass explosion. "Are you ok?" he tentatively broke the silence.

The boiling brunette didn't even hear him. A frustrated scream that had been boiled up inside him for weeks finally became physical and the glass tumbler in his hand was the victim. It got hurled at the nearest wall, exploding on impact. A rain of glass and the sound of crystal being decimated accompanied the dangerous slivers and shards that shattered everywhere.

Nate had chosen the wrong word. The failing businessman was definitely not _ok_.

"You know it's alright to be upset," Nate tried hard not to appear tentative, creeping into the room and trying to be supportive while still maintaining his distance for physical safety. At least the weapon of the glass was gone, and he'd never actually seen Chuck throw a punch so that had to be a plus.

As he got closer, it became more obvious that he was way out of his depth. He didn't having a clue what to say. He'd been around when Chuck lost it before. The remedy involved Chuck's two favourite vices – drugs and women. But seeing as Raina was the third of Chuck's girlfriends in the past year, he had a feeling that neither whores nor liquor would work at this moment. In the last year Chuck had become a girlfriend guy, and Nate silently cursed Blair Waldorf for doing this to his best friend. The guy was just fine before he lost his heart to her.

Chuck's breathing and wild eyes worried him - he'd never been near Chuck so emotionally and physically enraged. Usually he just wanted to zone out and remove himself from the world when he was facing hardship. But that coping mechanism looked nothing like this and Nate didn't really have an alternative.

The truth was that Chuck, at this stage, was beyond upset and into full on nuclear meltdown. His tightly held net of emotions keeping everything restrained inside snapped and now he was bursting at the seams with all the suppressed feelings he'd buried for the past months. Nate was so far off base as to its cause that he didn't realise what was actually wrong until Chuck spoke.

"Upset," he laughed darkly, the sound almost black with anger. He turned his dark, stormy eyes on his best friend and Nate actually cringed away. "She's going to help Russell Thorpe ruin Bass Industries, the only thing I have left of my father."

"C'mon man, you know it's more than just the company. You have feelings for her," he tried to tempt the billionaire into a slightly more positive outcome for this evening.

Something only Blair Waldorf had been able to accomplish with Chuck Bass. Nate gave it a try anyway.

Chuck's repulsed gaze narrowed and Nate realised the usually smug, knowing flicker was completely gone. He recoiled from the burning resentment that blazed beneath. "Feelings for Raina," he reiterated in a slow, disbelieving drawl. "You're more clueless than you look Nathaniel."

Nate noticed his fingers curled in at his side, nails biting into the flesh of his palms. The outward sign of agony from Chuck scared him. Chuck never felt anything except the loss of Blair Waldorf that acutely.

"My skin is crawling," he breathed, like a dragon breathing fire. "Itching," he enunciated, making sure Nate understood every word. "Because I haven't," he paused here, as if to find the correct words. "Touched Blair," he finally said and there was so much more meaning tied up in those two words than the sounds he produced. The power of it shocked Nate into frozen disbelief. "In _three months_."

The last words were roared like a king royally pissed at his court and Nate could almost picture dukes and duchesses cowering at his feet, fleeing the throneroom to escape from the king's wrath.

He'd always seen himself as a white knight and right now he wanted to leap atop his trusty steed and _gallop_ away from his best friend.

He had no idea how to deal with a Blair meltdown, because he hadn't known a Blair-thing was even going on! He was utterly baffled, but ultimately fighting a losing battle because it was beyond his capacity to understand. He'd never loved as Chuck had.

Chuck's insult to his Archibald intelligence completely passed him by because he was busy trying to understand the rest of it.

"Blair?" he repeated the blast from Chuck's love-life-past.

Since when was Chuck thinking about Blair? Contemplating being in a relationship again? They'd barely seen each other since the treaty, he was absolutely sure of it.

"I thought you'd moved on to Raina?"

After all she'd been gracing their penthouse quite frequently. Chuck took her to events and looked happy around her. Of course that was more than a simple escort – Chuck tired of women very quickly when they weren't petite brunettes who schemed and plotted and moved things into his closet without asking.

Yeah, he'd heard that rant from Chuck for about three days. Until Chuck realised that more of Blair's clothes in their penthouse meant more of _Blair _in their penthouse.

Nate needed to have his room soundproofed when they reunited after that.

Chuck glared at his clueless friend and suddenly wished he had a dagger in his hand. He pictured throwing it like a dart, and slicing through his best friend's shoulder, knowing it would relieve some of his tension. When would the word _friend _stop applying? The self-obsessed legacy truly hadn't seen what Blair's absence was doing to him?

For crying out loud! He was physically sickened as the process of waiting for her drew out interminably. Now not weeks but months were passing without her and he spent most days on the verge of nausea. His patience thin, his skin taut as he ached for her without an end in sight.

And all Nate could do was just stand there, clueless? Sometimes he physically shook with the need, with that repulsive sensation of unsatisfied want. It was always when he saw her – at a party where they couldn't avoid each other and he inhaled her scent accidentally, or would feel her heat without being close enough to touch her. Or on Gossip Girl when she would be out and about in her daily life and he was reminded he wasn't by her side for any of that anymore. Those times he would covet her so wholly that he would go to bed trying to remember how he'd been such an utter screw up, somehow losing her not once but over and over again.

Nate's confused puppy face made it clear his pea-sized brain was still trying to compute all the information he'd received. It made Chuck's throat burn for the taste of hard liquor and the numbing it would bring. Scotch. Whiskey. Hell gin or tequila would do. Anything to help dull the longing that was starting to stab him in the gut again. He'd felt a gun butted against him before, had felt it fire and a bullet rip through his stomach. This threatened to finish him off unless he returned to where he was supposed to be and finally found relief secure in her arms.

He brought himself back to his current surroundings and rolled his eyes. 'Venice' he'd told Raina – it was a weak effort on his part. He'd been planning to do what he'd always done, which was trade sex for secrets and win his father's company back. So that one day damn effing soon he could take his father's life's work, marry his beloved and make it part of their legacy.

Instead he was left to suffer through yet another bout of Blair-encholy.

His mind drifted to the ring locked up tight in his safe and the more detailed plans for his own legacy he'd begun to flesh out in his imaginings. Then he lunged for the champagne bottle. He couldn't stand anymore of it just now, not tonight. He'd seen her downstairs for just a minute and it was too much and not enough and all he wanted was to stand there, talking to her, until the night became day and the rest of the world ceased to exist. He wanted to be with her. He wanted her to be with him. And he had to live knowing it wouldn't happen.

So he poured himself a generous glass and started sucking it down in large gulps. He stopped for breath and refilled the empty glass.

"Wo wo, slow down," Nate interrupted him. "Just go apologise to Raina," he reiterated his thought of a few moments ago.

Chuck rolled his eyes in annoyed disbelief before he could stop himself.

"That's business," he justified the Thorpe vice president's place in his bed with such cold brutality that Nate's eyebrows rose.

Cold, heartless Chuck hadn't made an appearance in quite some time. He hadn't expected to see him ever again, not since he originally confessed how he felt to Blair.

Nate was still convinced that Raina had some place in his best friend's heart.

"It's not just business," Nate disagreed, based on his own observations of the two of them. "You have real feelings for her. I've seen you."

Chuck swallowed, wondering if he'd played the part too well. Nathaniel was thick and hopefully easily convinced. But what about Blair, did she believe that too? The thought of her having to picture him with someone else made his knees weak. He sunk into one of the dining chairs and for a moment felt all the blood rush to his head.

Blair knew he was still just for her – right? That all she had to do was give him a sign? He could be wherever she wanted. By her side, between her thighs, down on one knee…

The fabric of his suit began to feel rough, too rough against his irritated skin. The sensation was akin to rolling in hay after laying in soft silken sheets and relaxing to the feel of his beloved's freshly-washed hair falling over his shoulders. It was lots of tiny, irritating prickles. His existence had become physically painful without _her _and he was finding it harder to stand.

Losing his footing in reality as his thoughts drifted he tried to divert his attention from the irritation by focusing on his friend.

"I have been trying to distract myself," he finally allowed, narrowing it down to the very basics for his absurdly unknowing friend, but not allowing anymore of his turbulent emotions to show.

He only exposed himself to _her_.

Nate was like a skittish colt as he slowly approached the table, wary of Chuck aiming something at him this time. When nothing eventuated, he tentatively sat opposite at the romantic dinner set for two, pouring his own champagne. He was still finding it odd to comprehend that the relationship Chuck appeared to be in for the past few weeks was no more than a distraction.

"From Blair?" he probed.

Thick as a post. That was the unkind thought that passed through Chuck's mind. No wonder he missed her! She was quick, intuitive and razor sharp. Her focused mind keenly analysed the world around her and reached conclusions faster than he ever could. He needed that hyperawareness back, to lift him from the drag of waiting for Nate.

However he didn't have that many friends and he really did care for Nate on some level. So, feeling gracious, and allowing that the puppy should get at least a small treat, he raised his dark eyebrow in acknowledgement. It should have been so blindingly obvious but what the hell.

"Then go get her," Nate looked at him like he was a simpleton. His broad hand gestured to the open door. "She's here tonight," he reminded.

As if the single thing keeping him from the lover he craved was his inability to walk down a set of stairs. If Blair's mere proximity could solve his problems, he would have been stalking her in the back of his limo, seducing her every chance he got, until he slid inside her to the bone and they became the one being they were destined to be.

Except she wanted to be her own person apart from him. And Anne Archibald had made it clear that he wasn't yet good enough to deserve her.

"I need Raina to help save my father's company," Chuck spat through gritted teeth. Maybe that substantial increase in his personal wealth and adult responsibility would be enough for her.

He would give everything of himself to know when it would be enough. To know that he could be assured the right to bury his nose into the nape of her neck and scent her. He turned away from his own thoughts, lest he make for the door and stalk down the stairs until he found her and ravished her where she stood. Instead he looked at the pile of shattered glass that had fragmented the opulent room he'd intended to use as a persuasive sex cave on Valentine's Day. It was a lazy effort at best, a mockery of what he'd envisioned for his _other_.

His glance still strayed to the door. The other option of going to her was such an infinitely tempting possibility that he could barely stand to consider it. "And Blair wants to be her own star. I just have to _wait_."

That last word was spat out like the poison it was, eating away his soul. The waiting was bad, not knowing was worse. The worry that he may never feel her hands smoothing and cupping his neck as they kissed again. To accompany the acidic bitterness in his stomach he took a long, dissatisfied drink from his glass. The too-sweet alcohol fizzed against his tongue and he had to force himself not to spit it out. He liked reserving champagne for romantic encounters.

And the best of those involved strawberries and her in a very playful mood.

He huffed and kicked his feet up on the table, because either his cock or heart breaking was only moments away, and he didn't like the thought of either when he wasn't alone.

"You're doing a really good job of hiding these feelings," Nate almost seemed to be teasing.

The playboy smirked. A compliment, if ever he'd heard one, that he so perfectly played up to his image of a cold-hearted bastard. Wouldn't Bart be ever so proud?

"I've had years of practice," he reminded. Tonight was Valentine's night, and he was starting to wake up to the fact that he wasn't going to spend it with Blair. They weren't going to run their hot mouths over each other, eager and excited to live up to the expectation of February 14th. Their treasured shared whispers and kisses and promises to rock the world off its very axis were not going to eventuate like they had last year. All they would share were the few laced but sparse words they'd exchanged downstairs. The single longing glance.

The unfulfilled promise was getting too much to bare.

He retreated emotionally but his fallback position of cruelty was always freely available. Especially when his woman wasn't claiming her right to temper it. And Nate was such an easy target.

"The first time was three minutes after she first dumped me," he recalled with absolute precision "My best friend pulled her into a hotel room and had the gall to _wink _at me."

Nate looked startled.

Chuck felt the wretched agony all over again. And it spat out of him in a vitriolic burst of gunfire as the only available enemy took every bullet in stunned surprise.

"Try hiding your feelings when that's all you can think about. That last night you were the only one ever allowed inside her and tonight someone else's filthy hands are touching her delicate skin."

Nate's jaw dropped and he looked away, too ashamed to meet his best friend's eyes. They'd never discussed that particular event and with good reason. He still didn't understand how badly adolescent Chuck had been crushed by that betrayal. The girl he loved retreating from their passion and replacing his possessive caresses with the rancid relationship she had ended with her ex. He'd been that close to murdering his best friend in Monte Carlo that Christmas. If Blair hadn't been texting him furiously to assure his silence he might just have done it.

Nate might be blind sometimes but right now he could tell that already wounded Chuck was a dangerous creature indeed. He had all his weapons at the ready and he was desperate to unload with nothing to lose.

Less artfully than others would have, Nate chose the safest path and turned the embittered conversation back to Chuck. It was time to put them on a steadier course, hopefully a happier one.

"Does Blair even know?"

The champagne flute lifted to his lips and stayed there until he'd drained the glass. An unsubtle delaying tactic but he needed more time to think this through. And to calm the rage in Chuck's obviously pounding blood.

There was a long pause from the dark-haired companion.

"I almost told her at Christmas," he confessed hesitantly. Then paused, as if unsure of what he was about to say. "I don't want to rush us," not the truth, and yet wholeheartedly a wish. "When we're together I want her to be happy."

There it was. The crux of his misery. That he would give up himself to ensure Blair's happiness.

They fell into uncomfortable silence. Nate didn't have the answer and Chuck had nothing else to say. What else could he possibly reveal? For now he had nowhere to go, no escape in another unfulfilling woman, no welcome in the haven he craved. All he had was this dastardly inbetween.

He condescendingly surveyed the luxurious room around them. None of it was right. Seeing his head twist, and happy for a change of subject, Nate innocuously commented "you really went all out in here."

Chuck scoffed. His friend had no idea what 'all out' looked like. His memory flickered to before, his girlfriend draped in the finest silk, so thin he'd tempted a tiny soft nipple to come to the fore and crease the blushing cover. He'd felt like a god king, then. When the barest touch could coax such delicious reactions from her controlled body, and his attentions made her deliriously happy. As happy as she made him. He could remember with perfect clarity how she'd accepted the glass of champagne he held out to her and curiously surveyed their surroundings. Then that deliciously knowing smile had curved her plump pink lips in anticipation and his mouth had gone bone dry.

"You should have seen what I did for Blair last year," he smirked, still caught in the lingering warmth of her smile that day. The hint of happiness faded as quickly as the memory. "Or what I had planned for us this year." That last part came out on his breath, and he wished he hadn't said it the moment it was free.

Some things were too private even to share with Nathaniel.

He fingered the coarse bedspread. Now that the words were out he couldn't stop them, though he desperately wanted to. Unprompted, he kept talking, driving home to Nate how much this outburst of actual emotion was truly about Blair. How much everything lately was about a waning in his ability to simply sit back and wait for her.

He couldn't be restrained anymore.

"Right now, a year ago, I was falling asleep and thinking that when Valentine's Day came around again, we'd be living together." His dark eyes rolled to the ceiling and for a second Nate thought they were shining. That couldn't be right though. "I never could have foreseen _this_."

It felt very forlorn in that room just then.

"I _miss _her," he suddenly growled, letting it all boil down into those words. "I miss just _talking _to her without all the awkwardness."

It was true – he'd not only lost his girlfriend but friend, companion, _soul mate _when they stopped being together. It became more obvious as time went on.

Nate saw something Chuck didn't. The brunette in question emerging from a curtain across the room. Making it clear she'd heard absolutely everything. He smiled slowly. There wasn't a lot he could do for Chuck – the guy was always two steps ahead of everyone else. But this, this he might be able to help with. After all Blair was right there, how hard could it be?

"If Raina and Blair were in front of you right now, who would you choose?" he clumsily prompted Chuck. Knowing that if only Blair could see him say it, his enamoured friends may finally fix themselves.

And he felt like he should play a part, he still felt kind of guilty because he knew his mom had played a part in their latest breakup.

"I told you, Raina is business," Chuck hissed, wondering if Nate had been listening at all. He couldn't have put it more plainly.

"So, business or pleasure?" Nate stressed. "Would you choose Raina?" he played dumb. Having already heard Chuck spell it out, he needed him to do it one more time.

With the love of his life watching.

"Blair would understand, it's your father's legacy," he gave Chuck the perfect opportunity to unknowingly put it right. "After all she's trying to get to the top too."

Business was a priority, that was something Chuck could agree on. Over everything but one single person.

"Blair," Chuck said firmly.

Not an ounce of hesitation.

"There's no choice. It's Blair."

His woman's voice was soft but clear as it cut through the private conversation like a sharp knife into his heart.

"Archibald, Humphrey," she snapped in her cool, confident voice.

"Out."

He whipped around, looked from her, to the door that had never opened, then back to Blair standing across the room. Her eyes fired dark arrows straight through his chest and then locked onto him, refusing to let go.

"I need to talk to Chuck," she dictated, a warrior queen in a room full of indentured subjects.

His heart seized at the sight of her in all her glory, knowing she'd heard every word he said. Then he looked back at Nate, stupid, clueless Nate, in disbelief.

Nate winked knowingly and Chuck was completely blindsided.

"C'mon Dan," he encouraged the Brooklynite while cheekily dancing his eyebrows in Chuck's direction.

They quickly disappeared, and Blair pushed the door shut behind them. Then she turned the key in the lock and trapped him in the room with her. She slowly rotated to face him again. And everything, all the rules he'd been constraining himself with, all the agony and want he'd been forced to live with, came crashing down around him.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Raina Thorpe couldn't help herself. Despite the ruin that was last night she wanted to see that room he'd made one more time. No one had ever gone to that much trouble for her. What she and Chuck had was special, and despite his flaws he actually was the first person she'd thought might truly understand her. They were so similar, both had lost their mothers, both had grown up in hotels, both had business tycoon fathers with high expectations of a family legacy. He deserved another chance. But before she went to see him, she wanted to fulfil the secret thrill inside her and be reminded that he _liked _her. That he'd gone to all that trouble for _her_.

So she returned to the grand house, climbed the stairs and pushed open the door.

The once beautiful version of Venice in New York was no more. She stopped in disbelief and surveyed what had once been delicate glass and sumptuous silk. In its place was a room that had been utterly destroyed. Fabrics were ripped, furniture was upended, plates were shattered against the carpet.

And amidst the hurricane was the bed, where Chuck Bass was suspended over a decadently sprawled Blair Waldorf. His arm supporting his weight while he slowly trailed the tip of a ripe strawberry over her long elegant throat to nestle between her plump, wet lips. She slowly wrapped her sucking mouth around it and bit while he watched on, enraptured and oblivious to everything in the room but her face. For a moment he lingered there, watching the motions in her pale milky throat as she swallowed. Then he leaned down, deliberate and slow. His mouth touched her skin and he decadently began suckling the berry pink juice as it escaped in droplets of sweetness from the corner of her quirking lips. The heavy blankets rose and then fell, moving when Chuck did, settling into a single pile as he descended from a hovering watcher to a physical restraint on Blair's gasping body.

Raina was too shocked to move. His lips moved slowly, drawled something that made the girl beneath him smile and nip like an amused nymph at his curving mouth. The one thing Raina had learned in their time together? Chuck never talked in bed. As she watched he continued to speak in a low voice, drawing even more private smiles from his happily captured prisoner.

Blair meanwhile was coaxing him in closer. Lazily wrapping her long pale arms around his dark messy head and savouring her man's heavy weight finally pressed against her on their post-Valentines morning.

The independent Waldorf woman had forgotten what an utter slave she was to the scent of Chuck Bass's sweat. Now it lay heavy on her tongue and in the air after a night of intense lovemaking. Maybe if she took him inside her just one more time the ache would abate for a little while longer.

"What do you think we'll be doing next Valentine's Day?" she wondered, aimlessly tangling her fingers in his surprisingly soft hair.

She slid her eager tongue into his even more eager mouth, distracting him from his intent mission of nestling between her thighs and instead rolling him under her while they kissed. She loved being on top of this primal beast of a man. Exploring, she trailed her fingers down the soft dark hair that covered his pale chest.

"Mmmm," Chuck mused thoughtfully, straining upwards from his captured position to stay locked with her eager lips. He gently pressed at her back with his hands and felt her arch into him wantonly. He rumbled eagerly, heartily approving her closeness as she pressed her flat belly and soft breasts and _centre _down into him. This time they couldn't stop. He wouldn't live through it again, being separated from her. She might have forgotten what he tried to do twice last spring, but he hadn't. And he wouldn't.

"Getting married?"

Blair fisted his hair and yanked him back down into the pillow, separating their lips immediately. "Not funny," she warned.

"Wasn't trying to be," he maintained a cool and emotionless façade but Blair could sense a hotly aroused Chuck a mile away.

What she couldn't sense was his sneakiness – Blair gasped and a look of ghastly affront slapped onto her features. Raina realized Chuck's hand was probably doing something under the covers, something utterly lewd that would secretly feel amazing. She'd experienced those touches herself once or twise.

Blair and Chuck looked at each other in silence for a very long time.

"It took four hours to get your bitemarks on my neck and nails down my back," he finally warned in throaty caution, his dark possession scarcely hidden. "I don't think I'll need a year to get your ring on your dainty finger."

It used to scare her, that kind of intensity. Now Blair couldn't stand the thought of being without it. Not again. He lifted the finger in question to his mouth and placed a slow, open kiss on the knuckle.

"You, Chuck Bass, are not ready to be married," Blair cautioned him, the only response she would think of. She couldn't be taunted with fairytales he didn't plan on going through with.

"Oh I think I am," he refused to consent to her decree. His eyes blazed upwards, stroked hungrily over her face and body, openly claiming her without words. Refusing to exist beyond now without being like this, together. Always.

"I don't particularly like being Chuck Bass anymore," he growled definitively.

She'd heard that line before. "Not this again," Blair huffed, wishing he'd find another argument.

He wouldn't let her escape their feelings. Not this time, they were too intense and he couldn't take the blandness that crept in when her love ceased to fill his days. In the last few hours it had all become clear. The darkness fell away and from his place lolling on the pillows he beamed, his delight finally plain to see. "I think I'd rather be _Blair _and Chuck Bass," he grinned up at her.

Raina had never seen happiness that pure and unadulterated on anyone's face, let alone the miserable malcontent Chuck Bass.

The girl had paused, giving Chuck plenty of opportunity to convince her.

"Sounds good, doesn't it?" he read the thoughtfulness in her eyes. While she was distracted he was finally able to break free of her hold. All he did with his freedom was move forward to touch their foreheads together. And brush her long dark hair off her shoulders. Until at last her neck was bare to him and he was free to move down and finally taste that deliciously pale flesh.

"I'll be your husband and you will be – _mine_."

The word was said with such passionate intensity that Raina shivered. It became clear that they were resuming their amorous activities from last night as he snatched back the top position and lowered her onto the bed while placing kisses in the girl's vulnerable neck.

Her thighs clearly cradled him with desperate need and he pressed forward into them knowingly. This was beyond Chuck Bass – experienced playboy. This was Chuck Bass – partner. Attuned and attentive to the needs of one woman only. Raina had never seen with him like that.

"What happened to moving in together?" she heard the muffled female voice from somewhere beneath Chuck's rolling body.

All but her hands in Chuck's dark hair was now completely obscured.

"That was last year's plan," he was muffled too. The way his head was weaving back and forth she could only call what they were doing _necking_. "You lost that as your long term goal when you didn't show up to be proposed to. So now you will suffer the consequences."

An excited squeal came out of those thick covers, very very feminine in its tone. "How will I be suffering?" the breathy voice demanded to know.

"That is now our short term goal. I'll have my things moved to your room this afternoon. Unless you want to buy a new penthouse together, then it will probably take a few days."

Blair gasped then let out a long, grateful "Chuuuuuck." That was so incredibly intimate, no other creature had a right to hear it.

Raina took the chance to get the hell out of there.

She missed the passionate "I love you," that made Chuck smile as he was forced from the top to beneath his loving girlfriend.

"I love you," he crooned back, wrapping his hands in her hair and bringing their mouths back together.


	3. Chapter 3

Chuck was insatiable. To be fair, he was always insatiable – the sexual appetite of a womaniser wasn't meant to be channelled by a loving heart. It made his obsession with a single being too much to be borne – always too much.

She'd been able to handle it in the past – his desperate need and unquenchable thirst. After all she too had been deprived of unconditional affection most of her life and yearned for the love in his touch. But this was different. She kissed, petted, _loved _him. Took him inside her body over and over, rocked and caressed him to her own exhaustion. Yet still he would not be sated.

"Chuck," she caught his hand as it found her breast again.

"More," he demanded quietly, trying to stave off her protests.

The smothering weight of his body shifted, threatening to trap her beneath him.

Eyes of liquid maple syrup dripped with overwrought emotion she almost couldn't escape. _Almost_. She'd been satisfying him for the past eighteen hours with no rest, he shouldn't still be this desperate. Besides, she wanted to take him home to her own bed with its silken sheets. While it was romantic in here she couldn't hide from the fact that it had been created with someone else in mind. And she wouldn't be second choice.

He bent his head and soon they were kissing furiously, her protest lost in the desperation of his seeking mouth. So assuredly was he between her thighs that he didn't stop to take a breath, just let her bring him inside and make him shake uncontrollably.

"Shhh," she soothed, now that he was lost. Blair Waldorf always liked to be on top and took the golden opportunity of his weakness to shift her dark-haired boy onto his back. His hands reached up immediately for her breast and her thigh, grasping anxiously for any hold on reality. Ultimately though, he was powerless as she steadily coaxed his surrender.

As he reached his peak she captured his hands in her own and pinned them above his head. He tightened, grunted, jerked, _stared _at her while his finish crested around him at her behest. Then he collapsed, limp and panting. While Blair entangled their fingers and pressed his entrapped palms into the pillow.

"Be still," she soothed, lowering her lips to his neck and kissing softly. "We need to sleep."

He was still panting but at hearing her words, immediately shook his head, a wicked grin appearing on his lips. His head lifted from the pillows, trying to capture her lips and perhaps kiss her into submission and a further round of lovemaking.

"Chuck," she warned softly, pulling back before their lips could meet. She squeezed his hands for emphasis.

He didn't heed the caution. In a burst of power he yanked his hands free and with his newfound liberty wrapped his bare arms around her, bringing her crashing down to his chest. In the moment of confusion he pressed his mouth to hers and rolled back over to the dominant position, trapping her underneath him.

To Blair, it was some sort of miracle because his cock was hard _again_. Had he taken something? He didn't even seem to soften that time.

"Chuck," she coaxed more softly. Her soft hands found the familiar dip of his back and pressed the heels of her palms into it. He paused, if only for a beat.

"Blair," he smugly retorted. Pulling her leg around his waist and sliding back inside her. She responded, she _always _responded to him. He worked slowly, determined to see her come apart beneath him, _for _him, with _him _inside. His lips parted, lustily devouring her features, leaning forward and watching her face intently, shifting so that he pressed firmly against her swelling pleasure centre. Stroking over it with each press forward to join their bodies again.

"Stop," she pleaded. "I can't again."

His index finger slipped between them and then she felt the firm caress of the rough pad, right against her pearl.

"For me you can," he assured her without a doubt.

With firm pressure he moved his digit in an unyielding circle, demanding her body lose control. Blair could feel herself building haplessly, the unstoppable force of human nature overwhelming her rational desires. She stared at his beautiful features but couldn't concentrate, her eyes rolling back in her head every few seconds as she struggled to _stand_ it.

"Chuck," she meant to reprimand him but it came out more of a plea. "You feel so good," she suddenly confessed, completely unwittingly.

She trembled, already feeling the swelling in her head.

He rigorously rubbed his finger between her thighs, while pressing his own length solidly inside her.

"Please," the quiet begging came from him, not her.

He wanted to see her beloved face in that tightened surprise of loved ecstasy. Where each movement of his fingers or cock was directly tied to a movement in her lips or eyelids. Thoughtlessly he leaned over and captured her plump pink lips, kissing her roughly. That lack of control from her lover made her vulnerable too and she began surrendering to his expert touch. A few more rigorous pleasures from his cock and a well timed upward caress over her prominent pearl made her trembling begin.

"Yes," he encouraged, his breath ragged and unregulated as he watched, rapt. "Blair," his voice was tight as he watched her with intense interest.

He played her body deliberately, pressing forward into her with as much as she could take and more. "Blair," he repeated, losing his own tight hold on restraint as she tightened up around him and trapped him inside. "Blair," he gasped one more time in disbelief. Then came, hard.

He fleetingly thought that it would be better when they weren't using condoms, when Blair went back on birth control. He missed the spontaneity of pressing into her without a rubber and having her bareback. Then again there was a lot he missed since she stopped being his girlfriend.

He forgot everything but the well-fit vice clamping around his cock as he first trembled, then spurted and exploded, losing all sense of himself as he shuddered and came. Shoulders trembling, body heaving, hips pressing forward to fill Blair with everything he had.

"What's wrong?" Blair demanded to know as he collapsed on top of her again. He wouldn't be calmed and it worried her, even in her post-coital haze. She clutched his bare shoulder blades and wouldn't let go, nuzzling in his neck to soothe them both. "What's wrong?" she repeated in a whisper, the kisses along his jaw helping to keep him appeased, even if only briefly. "Why can't you stop?" she put into words the unspoken problem. Chuck couldn't be satisfied. No matter how many times they pressed together today it would never be enough for him.

He couldn't lift his head to look at her. Instead he trembled in aftershocks, shaking his head to indicate he didn't even know himself.

A delicate kiss was placed on her shoulder and her eyes briefly fluttered closed. Then she quickly grabbed his head in her hand and pulled him back.

"Uh-uh," she refused to accept any more kisses, sliding out from beneath him. Seeing that as the introduction to yet more lovemaking when she couldn't take anymore.

She lay beside him, her hand reaching out to his chest and resting over his heart. Keeping him a body's width away while still intimately close.

"Just look at me," she coaxed.

Their heads lay side by side on the pillow, her concerned dark eyes locked with his worried lighter ones. His hand hastily entwined with hers and they could both feel his racing heart beneath.

"I missed you. Being there with me," she let him into her heart while she kept him from her body. "We're together now, I promise. I'm not going anywhere."

Chuck tried to reach for her, to kiss her, to roll her beneath him again. She held out her hand and managed to keep him at a distance because endless sex would not make it better.

"I am leaving this room though. You wouldn't want me to stay somewhere you made for your ex-girlfriend would you?"

His eyes widened, like a horrific thought had crossed his mind.

"I'll forgive you _this _time," Blair warned playfully. She cupped his cheek and let him have one more soft kiss. Only a kiss though. "Lets go back to the city and have lunch. You and me."

She touched his lips once more in promise, a kiss of many more that would follow, and then she bounced out of the destroyed bed. Satin and silk hung at odd angles, bedraggled and crushed from hours of clutching and kicking and sliding bodies. As soon as Blair was up, he followed her without any of his usual studied laziness.

The first thing he did once his bare feet hit the ground was to curve his fingertips to the shape of her soft waist and move in close.

"If she was my girlfriend, you are more. With us it's – more."

He reached down and pressed his forehead against hers. Needing her to understand that people may have used that term – 'girlfriend' – with Eva and Raina just as freely as they had with Blair but to him it wasn't the same. What he felt for Blair wasn't the same.

"I know," she said softly.

Her thumb reached up and brushed his cheek. He caught it immediately and kissed the inside of her wrist, a hint of hopeful golden spark flickering in his eyes. Softly she held his gaze and prompted "Call the hotel and have them pack for you. It will feel better when you move in with me."

He nodded in blind agreement, reaching for his phone and beginning to text. Meanwhile she stepped into her heels and slipped back into the dress Chuck had so lovingly stripped from her the night before.

"I'm going to my room to change."

She only got to take a single step in the direction of the door.

"Wait," he finished sending his text and gathered up his clothes. "I'll come with you."

Blair then sat on the bed and waited while he redressed.

She watches, because she likes to watch, not many know that about her. But Chuck knows, it's why he has instant security camera playback installed throughout the Empire and accessible from every screen in his suite. It's why he doesn't disappoint, sending knowing smirks her way as he slides closed every button, closes every zip, ties every lace.

When he's done he reaches out, offering his hand with confidence, knowing she'll accept it. She takes it with a smile, happiness fizzing in her heart as he immediately brings their entwining fingers to his lips for a kiss.

He lifts up an overnight bag she didn't see before and then leads her out of the room for good – the door gets shut firmly behind them. Transition phase over. Now there's just Blair in utterly, full-on, more-than-a-girlfriend mode. He hasn't felt this comfortable in his own skin in a year.

"We're kicking Serena out," he decrees like a king, all his arrogance flooding back the minute the past is behind them.

"No we're not!" Blair indignantly rebuts. "She's fun to live with."

"Well she can have _fun_ hearing you moan my name all night. _Every _night," he whispers the last two words playfully. "We both know you aren't quiet. It's one of the things I love about you."

Blair frees her hand and wraps her arm around his back, leaning into him. "You're loud too," she counters, as if this is a rationalisation.

"You make me loud," he pulls her closer, thrilling at the weight of her against his side. "If you weren't so delicious I'd show more restraint."

"No you wouldn't," Blair's eyes narrow with playful accusation.

"No I wouldn't," he agrees. "The only one _restraining _me –"

Nate pops up in front of them, a massive grin on his face.

"Well well," he studies their bodies pressing close, the overnight bag in Chuck's hand. "Are you guys back together?"

The knowing smiles that neither of them can suppress are his clear answer. They share a quick glance that says more than words could hope to. Then he wonders if perhaps he's unwittingly unleashed the most brilliant evil genius onto the world. Again.

"So I guess your valentine's day wasn't ruined after all," he gives Chuck a knowing, satisfied grin because he knows he's really done something right this time.

Chuck pauses and then his features shift and Nate immediately worries. Uh-oh.

"I have plans for us next weekend," he announces smugly to Blair.

"Something we didn't do yesterday?" she immediately catches on. "A belated Valentine's Day?" Her fingers brush down the front of his chest and there is a hint of wantonness to the innocent caress that does not escape Nate's notice.

"I need more than five minutes heads up," he counters, leaning forward to brush her lips. "I promise you will enjoy yourself _immensely_."

Blair's features lift in anticipation.

"I can't wait," she pecks his lips, their eyes intensely locked. Nate wonders if they were are aware he is still here, so consumed are they by each other.

"I'll give you a preview tonight."

Nate coughs. TMI.

They both turn their heads and nothing else to him. Chuck's eyes narrow as he smoothly offers "Excuse us. We were going to lunch."

He slides his hand just a little further down, into the dip of Blair's waist and feels her shudder slightly. Good. He'd forgotten how pure and real her reaction to him is, how she responds to him so unashamedly. He pulls her in closer to his body.

"Did he know you were there, last night?" Chuck asks softly, leaning in to her neck so their conversation remains private as they walk away.

"Oh please," Blair disregards. "He can barely figure out how to work the product in his hair."

He laughs and presses a kiss into the untamed mess of her hair. They make it to her assigned room and he makes himself comfortable, watching interestedly as she undresses and slips into something fresh. He then does the same while she attempts to tame her hair, not entirely unconscious that the colour of his shirt complements the silk scarf she has wrapped around her locks quite nicely.

When they emerge from the historic house an hour later they leave Valentine's day behind them. Well, for this year at least.

**Author's Note**: Thank you to all the lovely people who have reviewed or read this story. I hope you enjoyed it!


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